From the paper that supported Hitler, I guess we should expect little less

Live Chat @18

“This is definitely a televised lynching.”

S Hundal

Having watched the smugfest, I’d have to say I agree with the analysis of both Sunny and the Daily Mail.

yet a lynching any respectable politician would have been able to spin to his advantage.

“And, icing on the cake, the same paper sports a story by DAILY MAIL REPORTER about “Labour engineering multicultural UK“, which is exactly the language of…make a wild guess.”

Wasn’t it a Labour advisor who claimed this?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/6418456/Labour-wanted-mass-immigration-to-make-UK-more-multicultural-says-former-adviser.html

Claude
It is apparent that you think anyone that questions the multi culture project is a fascist thug??

Supporting the multiculture project is the extreme position NOT questioning it.

Most other nations not enthralled to the western liberal elite have rejected multiculturalism – for example Japan and South Korea where strict immigration policies since the war have maintained a virtual ethnic uniformity – this is not the policy of vile racist morons but the policy of an advanced nations lead by intelligent and courteous democrats.

Multiculturalism is not inevitable nor is it morally superior as I think you would like to have us think. Or perhaps you are going to try to convince readers that you and others of your extreme political leanings are morally superior to the Japanese people ???

Claude – YOU are the extremist, not those that seek to stop mass immigration.

One last point – why did you delete my comments from your Hagley Rd to Ladywood site last month – they were not offensive or inappropriate? Readers should know that you delete comments that are troublesome for you to deal with.

Tokyo Pete

@ 4

Agreed absolutely.

Even given that he was being asked to defend views that are fundamentally indefensible in logical argument, Griffin’s performance was pitiful.

I’m just glad they don’t have anyone that’s any good.

abc, quick question, maybe you can answer a quick question. Why do you believe the actions of the japanese government up to now to be morally superior?

I’ve already asked this elsewhere, but when Griffin complains about “lynching,” is he talking about the old-fashioned, ultraviolent type or the touchy-feely type that “almost totally non-violent” Ku Klux Klan he was telling us about on Thursday might practice?

@abc for example Japan and South Korea

This seems to be your only argument, and you’ve got two comments explaining why it’s a grisly logical plane crash on the Don Paskini thread. Continuing to fly this vehicle after the engines have been shot off and you’re in a nosedive is not a wise move.

Lee
Please read my comment – I didn’t say I believed the actions of the Japanese government to be morally superior.

Fair point Claude but to be fair they have to shift copy and with the MSM in drastic decline then it’s not really as bad as you paint. I guess they have to go for sensationalism rather than journalism, entertainment rather than education. I’m not completely sure there are any decent papers left – the Guardian doesn’t seem to care about foreign news, the Telegraph has been floundering for ages, the Times is rather drivel and isn’t the Indy on life support?

To the old adage perhaps never trust what you read in the papers as it’ll just be tomorrow’s chip paper. (I’m sure this has been raised before but I used to almost religiously buy the Observer every week at £1.90 but as Rawnsley’s available for free, just save my legs but err… like the Post Office, isn’t that just the end of that?)

abc. You are the one that claimed multiculturalists see themselves wrongly as being morally superior. By proxy you’re saying you believe the practices of japan to be superior to some degree.

Otherwise you’re simply engaging in the same type of name calling (to a different scale) you hated so much on the other thread. Which is it?

@9

“Continuing to fly this vehicle after the engines have been shot off and you’re in a nosedive is not a wise move.”

Maybe he’s gone kamikaze… *ducks* 😉

Flying Rodent
Highlighting that multiculturalism is not the norm in many other advanced democracies is not my only argument but I do enjoy using this since I know it does cause you some problems.

Free thinking readers can perhaps look at the Don Paskini thread and make up their own minds. To use your analogy the plane certainly has not crashed but is flying along with a banner pulled behind informing readers of the truth.

“This is definitely a televised lynching.”

I said at the time that was a bad choice of words.

Griffin wasn’t strung up by an angry mob, he was so obssessed with his own masturbatory fantasies he hanged himself.

It was an asphyxi-wank gone wrong.

I look forward to the coroner’s photographs leaking out on the Internet.

Lee ref comment in 12.

It looks like you are trying to set a semantical trap for me. Let me answer this way.

It is unquestionable that those in the UAF etc see their cause as being morally superior to those that question the multiculture project. After they have assaulted a police officer at one of their protests I am sure they go home content in the knowledge that they have ‘good’ on their side and they are fighting ‘evil’.

The fact is that they are misguided, naive and uneducated in the realities of GLOBAL politics. What they are fighting for – ie the continuation and acceleration of the multiculture project an extraordinary and extreme position to take if viewed from a global context and certainly is not a ‘good’ cause.

There was a lovely example in the Sun a few days back (only thing the barbers had). Two pages (4 and 5) attacking the vile, racist, disgusting BNP. The whole spread was about Question Time.. except for one small box in the top left corner. “Shocker: Labour ex-minister claims the government has been intentionally and secretly encouraging mass immigration”.

(I’ve paraphrased from memory, the Sun wouldn’t use “intentionally”.)

so what you’re saying, abc, is you don’t want to answer my simple question?

And don’t bring the uaf in to this, thanks to the elements working inside them they are as extreme as the bnp in their views and manner. By trying to use them as an example of champions of multiculturalism is on better than those on here equating your views with that of the bnp.

I think what a lot of the more informed white working class would have seen on that QT debacle was an immense degree of hypocrisy from all involved in that carefully stage managed Stalinist-like show trial by TV.

For instance, during QT Straw choose ethnicity to describe his ancestor’s arrival in Britain and his status as a” third generation Jewish émigré” rather then nationality, making an offensive mockery of his later stance that the English / British ethnic identity is somehow spurious and to be scoffed at.

He is on record as describing “the English” as “potentially very aggressive, very violent” – so he clearly does have an opinion on who the English are as a distinct ethnicity (and a very negative one at that) but acted outraged on QT at the suggestion that there even was any such thing as an indigenous inhabitant of the UK let alone an English ethnicity.

Straw is also credited with stating in a Falklands constuition document that the “English as a race are not worth saving” but the government Straw is a member of would not allow the ethnicity of English on the census form; and of course he says he is a “former communist” and so it is fine for him to change his extremist views but not Griffin.

As for Bonnie Greer getting on her high horse about there being no such as thing as the English people or indigenous Britons and guffawing at the suggestion that race could form the basis of an organization, she was a long term resident of the Black Theatre co-operative and clearly felt racial identity in organization was fine in that case.

Sayeeda Warsi was rejected by the voters in Dewsbury and so was subsequently made a Baroness to bypass that annoying facet of democracy that ministers – even shadow ministers – should be elected in a real democratic society and so it was all very rich for her to be telling a man who has been democratically elected and has a mandate what people really think and act as she has some sort of mandate herself when she was rejected by the electorate.

Whilst Chris Hunhe was attempting to say that there were not enough “Liberal-Democrats active” and that his party was the only party that can “stop the BNP” when clearly he is very much at odds with his own party and thinks that his leader “parrots Cameron” and is a “Tory twin” and has massive disdain for the Tories themselves deriding Hague as a “skinhead who has toured the beer cellars of central Europe, and has come up with the dregs” – in short a Nazi, and so Hunhe clearly thinks that the leader of his party shares at least some common ground with Nazis.

And it was all presided over by a man who the license fee payers pay hundreds of thousands of pounds do a professional job, not to arbitrarily and spitefully change the format of the show for the first time in 30 years to ambush a guest, encourage the audience to be booing and jeering a guest and leading and initiating discriminatory attack on a person and a party he doesn’t happen to agree with.

In short it all stank, and stank badly and if Griffin wasn’t so visibly nervous and shaken he could have easily have ripped them to pieces, or in the current buzz word parlance “exposed them.”

the format was the same, questions from the audience, chosen on the basis of how relevant they were to the viewers at that time. Given ratings it’s clear most people watching were to see what griffin had to say for himself, and in the end that wasn’t an awful lot other than to hang himself. Not only by proving his prejudice but to show hardcore fascists in his party he is willing to ‘play nice’ with ethnic middle england to win favour.

In short it all stank, and stank badly and if Griffin wasn’t so visibly nervous and shaken he could have easily have ripped them to pieces, or in the current buzz word parlance “exposed them.”

Indeed, and if he’d had supernatural powers, Griffin would’ve easily blasted them all into space dust by shooting bolts of lightning out of his arse and beating them with his pendulous ballsack.

I really have no idea why some folk seem to think that piggybacking their dodgy opinions on the back of the BNP is a wonderful idea that in no way makes them look like sneaky little rats. Further, the idea that the constantly-invoked working class are on the BNP’s side against the ‘orrible liberalssess is patently fucked up – if they were, the BNP wouldn’t be a tiny party of stupid nazis with a small minority voting base of credulous, small-minded fuckwits.

To be clear here – pushing the BNP as representatives of people who actually appear to be apathetic or outright hostile to their cause is dishonest and frankly suspect. Me, I reckon angry right wingers who may not like the BNP’s racist policies, but are happy to use them as a stick to beat the government, the BBC, the awful liberals etc. are actually a lower form of political lifeform than BNP voters themselves. The voters have stupidity and prejudice as an excuse, but these The BNP are a bit nasty but oh, those nassty socialissess types know full well they’re riding in the BNP’s slipstream for political advantage. We can see you doing it, lads.

Highlighting that multiculturalism is not the norm in many other advanced democracies is not my only argument but I do enjoy using this since I know it does cause you some problems.

It doesn’t cause me any problems at all, but the fact you haven’t addressed any of the gaping holes gouged into your weak argument on the Paskini thread indicates that it might be causing some for you. Continuing to refloat an argument that has been holed beneath the water isn’t helping your case.

Lee ref your comment 18
Okay I am prepared to accept that my comment in 16 did not tackle your question head on. Lets have another look –

You said
“abc. You are the one that claimed multiculturalists see themselves wrongly as being morally superior. By proxy you’re saying you believe the practices of japan to be superior to some degree.”

My response
It doesn’t necessarily follow that if I assert group A is misguided in its belief that it is morally superior to group B that I believe group B is the morally superior of the two groups.

You said
“Otherwise you’re simply engaging in the same type of name calling (to a different scale) you hated so much on the other thread. Which is it?”

My response
I didn’t say the Japanese position is morally superior to those that promote multiculturalism here in the UK and therefore no “name calling” as far as I can see?

Perhaps it might be clearer if I put my position this way – if I promoted the Japanese policy “very strict immigration controls to maintain ethnic uniformity etc” I would face angry attacks and be accused of being a vile racist (my wife thinks this is very amusing) – I am firmly of the view that the Japanese position is perfectly valid and should be discussed and considered here in the UK in more even tempered fashion without the hysteria.

@19 – good post. Not too sure about slating Dimblebore or the format of QT itself – that should be a walk in the park for any politician, especially a chap like him. Can you imagine if they did that to Nigel Farage? He’d actually pop his ears off he’d be smiling so much – granted, in a completely different sport to Griffin, let alone league but still. The chap on Marr this morning – QT gaffer, stated that the expenses scandal hit virtually the same format as the BNP programme. Everyone’s got a problem with Dimbledore, everyone – but I never understood why they got rid of Sissons but at least it’s completely consistent. Audience criticism – again, unless someone proves that their is some bias other than the bias of being one of the muppets who applies then that argument again goes with it’s for politicians to win them over or at least make them think. I can understand why prime ministers don’t go on but any other jobbing politician should be soaking it up.

We didn’t see a lynching, we definately saw shite guests full of disgusting hypocrisy, vanity, hectoring, I know better than youism. It was a deeply unfulfilling programme. However, it was polemic & has got people talking. I hope that it doesn’t get like the French presidential election where Le Pen came in 2nd and every one shat themselves and voted for Chirac in the final round but that’s just the way it is.

i don’t disagree that there is a debate that can be had about the extent of multiculturalism, though i side on let things naturally flow as they will, but i absolutely object to your use of a completely different political country with about as different a heritage from ours as can be to try and prove that it is ao immediately sensible argument.

I for one think any kind of mono-cultural argument is redundant given the lack of a single resonant trait of the british throughout the land (other than, perhaps, queuing), unlike countries like japan who have a very diffse collective culture. And also because, unlike japan, our country has been made great based on the contributions made by other countries and cultures, willingly or otherwise, and taken on nationally.

But as for arguments, i’m afraid if you think group a is misguided them you have to believe, at the least that group b is on the same level or better. Either group a is misguided, therefore you are not; or group a merely has an argument you don’t agree with as being the way you’d solve a problem (a problem you have yet to spell out, why should we adopt the japanese system, what to solve?), which feels more like the case.

Also please answer what was put to you in the other thread.

@ Lee Griffin

The format was not the same and I do not know of any commentator in the public sphere that agrees that it was; QT is meant to be about topical issues and only one week old question was asked and even that was turned into a personal attack.

As for “questions from the audience, chosen on the basis of how relevant they were to the viewers at that time” the audience was rigged; rigged to be hostile to Griffin; we all know that now. Just as we all know that Dimbleby encouraged the audience to boo and jeer and we also know that the BBC instructed the audience to ask only provocative questions.

That was not a spontaneous outpouring from a genuine cross section of the UK but a carefully orchestrated rig organized by the BBC.

Where were the ordinary white working class?

@ FlyingRodent

Lots of words but meaning.

What is that you are trying to convey?

@ Dick the Prick

“Audience criticism – again, unless someone proves that their is some bias other than the bias of being one of the muppets who applies…”

It has been well established in pretty much all of the MSM that the audience was very much handpicked. One guy who asked a question hadn’t even applied to be on the show, the BBC asked him.

25. What is more topical than the first proper appearance by the bnp in a legitimate political show on the bbc?

@ Lee Griffin

A panelist appearing on QT is not a topical event; it was quite clearly an organized and concerted attack by the BBC that has backfired. Clearly.

And If this ‘format’ was the ‘norm’ for controversial figures then why wasn’t terrorist mass murderers such as McGuinness and Adams subjected to such a ‘format’?

Whatever you think of Griffin, his only actual crime has been ‘thought crime’, not orchestrating bombings, shootings, beatings, kneecappings, extortion, armed robbery, drug smuggling and countless other outrages against humanity.

Ah – Curious Freedom. Shinners not being treated the same way is a nugget to be sure. But in some regard i’d expect this to have been dealt with quite passionately in BBC NI coverage. I used to hang about Biassed BBC blog and Dave Vance is highly vociferous on such things. In no way belittling the troubles, I genuinely don’t thing there was the passion of the audience to act in unison under a clearly defined political message. I dare say at the height of the war then tempers would have flared but the IRA and shinners were proscribed. Griffin is legitimate and as mentioned, Griffin screwed it. How often do politicians answer questions? Watch PMQs for how to parry and Griffin is hardly a novice. If farage had had it done – he’d have bamboozled everyone with figures as should Griffin to obtain any credence; if you can’t beat an audience then bore the shit out of them.

Lee
I will grant you that you are making a better fist of challenging my argument than I usually face on these sorts of websites and I welcome that, but I don’t think you can dismiss my point quite so easily and I think many readers will recognise it is wishful thinking on your part and Flying Rodent’s part when you claim that my point is defeated.

Yes the LDP have dominated Japanese politics since the war but it is wrong to claim that there is not an active political scene and debate in Japan. Many political parties sprung into action even before the Americans had left after the war. The Japanese people have been masters of their own destiny and that destiny did not include multiculturalism since they rejected it.

You might not like it but it is absolutely relevant (even taking into account historical differences you have referred to) that other advanced demoncracies (not only Japan) have rejected multiculturalism. The reason – the typical person in the street has been brainwashed into thinking that multiculturalism is inevitable in modern society – if more people understood that one of the most advanced nations in the world has rejected this project I think this will have an important influence of people’s opinions. I think that you in fact probably also recognise this.

I will have a look at the other thread again in a moment.

27. 2/3rds of the audience at home tuning in did so because griffin was on there, therefore wanted to hear what he had to say about his party. Everyone was expecting him to get asked about his policies and history except, it seems, nick griffin. Hardly a shining example of being in touch with the electorate!

#6, #29abc,
the reason why I deleted your comments on Hagley Road is that you were starting to be abusive and I saw no point in continuing a “debate” that was going round in circles.

To go on about stuff like “multiculturalism is wrong because they also say so in Japan” does not interest me. It’s like saying “they eat dogs in Korea hence there’s nothing wrong with having grilled dog on the menu”.

The fact that something takes place in Korea, Japan, Malaysia or Finland does not make it any better or worse.

That said, given that you keep going on about multiculturalism.

So, let’s get this straight.
I disagree with “multiculturalism” if that means a license to ghettoise groups according to their religion…like it’s been the case in Britain for a while – with the government propping up and actively fostering faith schools for instance.
That is a big mistake.
In that respect, I have more time for the French approach. I hope that’s clear enough.

Now. What concerns me though is that the expression “multiculturalism” is often used by racists to try and make their views more palatable. While it should be prefectly possible for people to air their concerns, I don’t buy those if they come from certified professional racists such as the BNP.

Like I told you last month on Hagley Road, I have no time AT ALL for the BNP because these are the same people who were picking on the West Indians community 15-20-30 years ago and before then the Irish and the Jews. There are photos of Nick Griffin walking around with a White Power t-shirt and he was doing so when he was an adult and not an impressionable 14 year old twit.

On my blog, dear “abc/Tokyo Pete”, you defended and justified the BNP’s “white-only” policy. More I need not say.

#25
On to Question Time. Why is it that people on the far-right are always so paranoid? Why does it always have to be a “conspiracy”?

On his own blog, BNP legal director Lee Barnes is now spurting daft references to Zionists and Jews again (“the UK Zionist Network” and “the UK wing of the Israeli Foreign Ministry”, to be more accurate)
Obviously, no matter how hard they try they just can’t help it at the BNP, can they? This Zionist conspiracy thing just has to re-surface…

The BNP and the people defending them on this thread need to simply grasp that their views are those of a tiny minority in the UK. And that’s in spite of Nick Griffin’s crafty attempt at sanitising them. When he stuttered that stupid reply about Holocaust denial on Question Time, Griffin effectively waved goodbye to any delusion that the BNP could make any further inroads into the mainstream.

To use imaginary “European legislation” as a fig leaf for his denialism was just hideous. More so as having an Arch Europhobe using Europe as a shield was too big an irony to be overlooked.

As soon as a third of the BNP’s true colours are known to the public, the genuine reaction is that had by most of the audience on Question Time, no matter how Griffin’s fans at the Daily Mail try and kick up a fuss about “conspiracies”.

Stop sticking up for the natural heirs of those who used to throw bananas at black football players on the pitches across Britain.
These are true racists who are always after some excuse to cling on to, the same way they were doing it in the 70s, the 80s and before then.

28. Precisely, the one shining truth from it is griffin wouldn’t last 2 minutes in a pmq’s

Abc. I am not trying to say your point about japan is wrong, just that you cannot compare them to britain. Bring up as many advanced democracies that celebrate monoculturalism as you like, it doesn’t have any associative link to how we should be developing as a country. Many readers agreeing or not, you simply haven’t shown a logical link between your two statements. I refer you again to my cheese and canaries statement.

What are there other cultures that have multiculturalism as part of their heritage for almost 2 millenia that don’t also need to embrace it? Please state them as examples, otherwise you’re just employing griffin’s tactic on abc of making vague and undebatable statements to try and win arguments.

Japan, and these ‘others’ contain insular cultures or foreigners that want to embrace that culture. They can, practically, maintain those policies you love due to their insular heritage. Practically we can’t without mass deportation, the forced removal of cultural elements that have rooted themselves in this country over generations, and the renouncing of all but one religion.

You can argue all you like about how it works for other countries, and despite the number of examples you try to stack up against it, they are not, nor will they ever be, britain. This is what the bnp don’t understand, and why they’ll ultimately fail. The voices of a few historically illiterate and short sighted voters won’t change that.

a few spelling errors here and there, phone predictive text, keep that in mind when trying to decipher!

@ Curious Freedom: What is that you are trying to convey?

You say That was not a spontaneous outpouring from a genuine cross section of the UK but a carefully orchestrated rig organized by the BBC. Where were the ordinary white working class?

Let’s be clear here – the BNP do not represent the “white working class,” however you define them. If they did, then this white working class would vote for them in very large numbers. In reality, they don’t vote for the BNP – if they did, then the BNP would have more clout than a couple of MEPs picked up in European elections thanks to record lows in voter turnout. I have folding money that I’d bet on any opinion poll of the populace’s attitude to the BNP returning the verdict Horrible Nazi bastards rather than Brave, stoutchested defenders of the working poor.

They actually represent themselves – a gang of Nazis with a long history of baseball-batting minorities and seig-heiling – and roughly one million fascist voters who have spent the last fifty years voting for whichever political groups promised to crack down on black people and Asians. Their constituency is the various numpties who loved Enoch and the National Front, and that’s about it.

Attempts to pretend that the BNP are the true voice of the masses are risible and fairly contemptable ploys to co-opt people behind a very nasty political program that they do not, in fact, support.

If you look at recent BNP-related comment threads, you’ll see lots of concern trolls trying to pretend that Nick Griffin’s treatment on QT was an elitist assault on white working class values. The people making this argument clearly believe that they are landing bodyblow after bodyblow on the government, the evil Beeb and the awful liberalssess, but they aren’t – they’re riding on the BNP’s coattails for political advantage. They are, in effect, letting Nazis do their dirty work so that they can further their fucknut agendas without getting their hands covered in sticky, racist shite.

It’s nasty, painfully obvious bullshit and it should be roundly mocked, which is pretty much the point I’m trying to make here.

@ Lee Griffin

Everyone was expecting to watch Question Time as it has been for 30 years, not a completely different show that had been carefully stage managed to personally attack one elected MEP to the almost exclusivity of the rest of the program.

@ Claude

“Why is it that people on the far-right are always so paranoid? Why does it always have to be a “conspiracy”?”

A rather bizarre statement given that we do know that the audience was rigged; rigged to be hostile to Griffin; we all know that now. Just as we all know that Dimbleby encouraged the audience to boo and jeer and we also know that the BBC instructed the audience to ask only provocative questions. And we also know that at least one guy in the audience who asked a question didn’t even apply to be on the show, the BBC asked him to appear.

”As soon as a third of the BNP’s true colours are known to the public…”

Griffins past statements are well known to anyone who reads any newspaper in the UK and had been especially made known to people in the North West during the EU election campaign. They still voted for him in sufficient numbers so to elect him as one of their MEP representatives.

@ FlyingRodent

“Let’s be clear here – the BNP do not represent the “white working class”

It is their base, their target and their potential propellant.

“If they did, then this white working class would vote for them in very large numbers. In reality, they don’t vote for the BNP”

The latest YouGov poll suggests 22% of the electorate will now seriously consider voting for the BNP.

“and roughly one million fascist voters who have spent the last fifty years voting for whichever political groups promised to crack down on black people and Asians.”

So you are saying that all BNP voters are at fascists and at least 68 years old? How absurd.

Pretty much as absurd as your first comment was, and this second attempt at coherence is.

35. Delude yourself all you want. The show’s ratings don’t triple when much more interesting people are on during much more interesting times, even the expenses scandal with 2 or 3 mp’s that had been exposed cs being cheats on the panel.

At least 2/3rds of the viewers wanted to see him grilled on his views. Any other politician would have died to get such air time with such inflated viewerships. All you and he can do is complain in the face of what the majority wanted to see, it’s pathetically adolescent. That’s democracy, as much as you hate it.

also, back up your claim the audience was rigged with some proof, break the mould for once.

@35 Curious Freedom

“Just as we all know that Dimbleby encouraged the audience to boo and jeer and we also know that the BBC instructed the audience to ask only provocative questions. And we also know that at least one guy in the audience who asked a question didn’t even apply to be on the show, the BBC asked him to appear.”

We all know? We know what the Daily Mail wrote, and to be quite frank, I’d have to be held at gunpoint to to believe a word they write ever again.

“The latest YouGov poll suggests 22% of the electorate will now seriously consider voting for the BNP.“.

Again, that’s how the Daily Mail chose to report it. The Sun said that “Only seven per cent in the YouGov poll of 1,314 people said they would “definitely” or “possibly” back them”. Now I admit, between The Sun and the Mail it’s a clash of the titans of who talks shite the most…but there you have it.

Also, in any case, either way I wouldn’t get overexcited about voting-related opinion polls and the angle used to hold on to words like “maybe” and “possibly”. That actually reeks of desperation.

Thirdly.You will agree that in the last few weeks the BNP has enjoyed unprecedented industrial quantities of free publicity – also totally disproportionate given the size of that party. Nick Griffin himself acknowledged so (if only the Green Party or the Lib Dems could enjoy being talked about as much). After all that, and in spite the widespread disgust at both Labour and Tory, 7% is a very poor performance indeed.

@35 Curious Freedom: “Just as we all know that Dimbleby encouraged the audience to boo and jeer and we also know that the BBC instructed the audience to ask only provocative questions. And we also know that at least one guy in the audience who asked a question didn’t even apply to be on the show, the BBC asked him to appear.”

1. I don’t *know* whether the BBC rigged QT in order to have a go at Griffin. Unlike you, I haven’t seen the out takes of David Dimbleby waving his arms around to provoke the audience or barring people who wished to ask tame questions.

2. Shock! BBC invites man to participate in audience of political debate programme! That’s how television works, you know.

Glad to see you chaps are giving Curious Freedom a bit of attention. He’s dumped an identical comment (comment 19) over at HP, Shiraz Socialist and on my site as well, and he’s been craving for people to take notice of him defending Griffin. To repeat what I said to him on Shiraz:-

Say what you like about the other panellists, at least they aren’t Nazis.

Claude
Ref your comment in 29.
I certainly was not being abusive. I was subjected to the most vile abuse on your website and I made a determined effort not be dragged down to the same level. Readers on this site in last few days will know I try to be measured.

Plus I never said I supported a white only policy? – that was what others said I wanted in an effort to portray me as a vile racist. You might remember my wife is Japanese?? I want CONTROLLED immigration not a whites only policy.

I am firmly of the view that you deleted the comments because you thought they were “dangerous” as I remember one of your friends saying.

I see you are not interested in making comparisons with other advanced nations? Isn’t that a little arrogant – do you think we have nothing to learn from other cultures and other peoples? Is it only the western liberal elite’s view of how society should be engineered that is valid?

Ref your point on “multiculturalism” – forgive me I am a surveyor not a student of political science or an academic of any kind so I am not well read in the technical definitions. I agree with some of what you say eg faith schools being unhelpful but it seems to me that mass immigration is so out of control and the numbers of immigrants so large that it is inevitable that immigrants will be attracted to ghettos – because no large society of indigenous people exists in the large cities for them to mix and settle with – they have no chance of becoming British since they are unlikely to meet many. It is like we have passed a critical mass or tipping point.

@Flying Rodent

‘They actually represent themselves – a gang of Nazis with a long history of baseball-batting minorities and seig-heiling – and roughly one million fascist voters who have spent the last fifty years voting for whichever political groups promised to crack down on black people and Asians. Their constituency is the various numpties who loved Enoch and the National Front, and that’s about it.’

I agree almost and could be persuaded but not knowing that many BNP voters i’m not too sure. I think a lot of BNP voters are either disengaged, pissed right off for various reasons, living in places which have problems, less socially mobile etc etc. I completely agree that the leadership is all of the things you list. The voters however pay taxes (or rather, haven’t been screwed by the electoral roll being sold so baliffs can chase them!!!!!!!!!), are sufficiently engaged to get off their arses, may be cynical, may be angry but voters none the less. We can only convince rather than ban (under the law). Don’t take the piss out of the voters – well, not yet anyway please – let’s err…give it a few months?

@ Lee Griffin

“Delude yourself all you want.”

You really think that when I say people tuned in to watch QT with Griffin on and got a complete format change, a rigged audience and a personal attack not even bestowed upon terrorist mass murders I am deluded? Make me laugh…

“At least 2/3rds of the viewers wanted to see him grilled on his views.”

Really? To paraphrase you: “also, back up your claim…, break the mould for once.”

People tuned into QT to watch the QT format of topical questions.

“That’s democracy, as much as you hate it.”

What a silly little baseless hysterical piece of rubbish. What a prat. Back that up.

“also, back up your claim the audience was rigged with some proof, break the mould for once.”

For a start, what’s this “break the mould for once” nonsense? Just more silly baseless hysteria as I have only ever posted a few comments on this blog.

But essentially you want me to keep you up to date with current affairs?

Well, here is just one account. Read the comments of the people that were there below:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1222586/The-BNP-backlash–MPs-accuse-BBC-playing-Nick-Griffins-hands-stage-managing-Question-Time-onslaught.html

And then also some of the comments by senior politicians on all sides, such as Blunkett, Davis and Abbot.

@ Claude

“We all know? We know what the Daily Mail wrote, and to be quite frank, I’d have to be held at gunpoint to to believe a word they write ever again.”

If you didn’t read it how do you know what they wrote about? And it was based on comments from the audience members themselves!

“Again, that’s how the Daily Mail chose to report it…”

No Claude, that’s what the poll says! In your obvious prejudice you seem to lose a lot of information on the way.

Shall we try the Guardian in any case? More comfortable with them?

“The YouGov poll for today’s Daily Telegraph…22% of Britons prepared to consider voting for them in local and European elections”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2009/oct/24/bnp-poll-boost-question-time

@ Charlieman

1) Anyone who opens a newspaper or goes online and keeps up with current afairs rather then burying their head in the sand will *know* that the audience was rigged.

2) That’s not how QT works, you know!

@ KB Player

“He’s dumped an identical comment (comment 19) over at HP, Shiraz Socialist and on my site as well”

I love the self righteous tone of anger you employ for my practicing of free speech, how amusing.

I haven’t “dumped” anything, unless you consider all comments to be dumped rather then posted.

“and he’s been craving for people to take notice of him defending Griffin.”

An odd analysis. I’m not ‘craving’ anything. I am making comments in the same way as you and everybody else.

And I haven’t actually defended Griffin at all in my comments. I have said that QT was not QT and had been carefully stage managed by the BBC to resemble a Stalinist show trail and that feeling has been echoed by many, many people. I also said that the panel chosen to attack him were nothing more then hypocrites, as proven above.

“To repeat what I said to him on Shiraz:- Say what you like about the other panellists, at least they aren’t Nazis.”

And to repeat what I said to you on Shiraz:

“Just hypocrites and liars, with an unelected minister, an organiser on racial grounds, expense fiddling thieves and a war criminal amongst them.

And a “former” communist who supported an ideology that murdered well over 100,000,000 people (far more then the Nazis) and failed to apologise for that or the Holodomor, a Holocaust ten years previous to and of greater magnitude then the Shoa.

Straw is a “former” extremist and can change but Griffin cannot? Is that the idea here?

And isn’t strange just how many “former” communist there are in “New Labour”?”

#42abc
“I am firmly of the view that you deleted the comments because you thought they were “dangerous” as I remember one of your friends saying”.
You give yourself way too much credit. Quite touching actually.

“Plus I never said I supported a white only policy? – that was what others said I wanted in an effort to portray me as a vile racist. You might remember my wife is Japanese?? I want CONTROLLED immigration not a whites only policy.

Here we are. See how manipulative you are? But you can’t play this game with me.
I said that “you defended and justified the BNP’s “white-only” policy”, which is a fact – you see no wrong in a clearly racist policy- tacist by definition. You did so as you commented on my blog and when you were challenged (by James ‘Daily Quail’ as I recall), you reiterated that view .

“I see you are not interested in making comparisons with other advanced nations?”

Either you can’t read or you take some pleasure in twisting what people said. You may appear “measured”, but your ideas and your debating-style, so to speak, aren’t.

So I’ll repeat it for you. Pay better attention this time:

To go on about stuff like “multiculturalism is wrong because they also say so in Japan” does not interest me. It’s like saying “they eat dogs in Korea hence there’s nothing wrong with having grilled dog on the menu”.

The fact that something takes place in Korea, Japan, Malaysia or Finland does not make it any better or worse.

You go on about the fact that they do certain things in Japan like a broken record. The answer is simple and Lee Griffin made an EXCELLENT point @32, which I totally agree with. Second, I reiterate what I said about dogs on the menu @31.

And quit that creepy paranoid BNP/Daily Mail-crap about “engineered society “. I suspect if there’s one type of engineered society that is the one you’ve got in mind. Which would be very, very ugly.

44. The usual viewing figures versus the figures on the night are in the public domain. Do the math, an extra 5-6 million people didn’t tune in for the first time just to check out the format. As i said, deluding yourself, especially when using as proof a paper that claimed someone’s death wasn’t natural causes was a fact despite the coroners own verdict. Hilarious.

Also the clear thing is that griffin hasn’t changed, despite in the show telling audience members they could ‘stay’ his message when in the comfort of his own people stated the audience wasn’t british. It is clear his tactic is to prey on the gullible given your presence and persistantly baseless line.

And you hating democracy, at least 93% of this country want to see griffin explain his racist policies, and (once again) viewing figures show the public wanted to hear his stance on those policies. You don’t like how it worked out so alof the system and organisers. Clearly you’d rather you had the power to in against what the public want for you own gains. Telling.

@ Lee Griffin

“Do the math, an extra 5-6 million people didn’t tune in for the first time just to check out the format.”

They tuned in to see QT, clearly. They didn’t get QT. Clearly. They got the first format change in 30 years. Clearly.

“As i said, deluding yourself, especially when using as proof a paper that claimed someone’s death wasn’t natural causes was a fact despite the coroners own verdict. Hilarious.”

I just love that smug indignation whenever the Daily Mail is mentioned to the left! It is priceless and that is why I linked to it. But in any case, as has already been stated, the article is from the words of the very people who were there. In short, it is from the horse’s mouth.

And there loads more out there if you want to do your own research.

“Also the clear thing is that griffin hasn’t changed, despite in the show telling audience members they could ’stay’ his message when in the comfort of his own people stated the audience wasn’t british.”

I think you need to educate yourself on the polices a bit more if you are going to attack them, lest you look silly and uninformed.

The BNP’s stance is that they are civically British, that is legally British with full citizenship, but they are not ethnically British, that is they are not indigenous.

“And you hating democracy”

A TV program is neither a conduit nor a practice of democracy. Not even the X factor or BB. Do you really not know that?

“at least 93% of this country want to see griffin explain his racist policies”

To paraphrase you once again: “also, back up your claim…, break the mould for once.”

“viewing figures show the public wanted to hear his stance on those policies”

These viewing figures show that they wanted to watch him on QT and QT has a format that has remained unchanged for 30 years, so it is pretty obvious that it was in that format they wanted to see what was asked and what was answered.

“You don’t like how it worked out so alof the system and organisers.”

I don’t like that it was a rigged personal ambush, and a total change from a 30 year format to facilitate that that rigged personal ambush, that not even terrorist mass murderers who have appeared on the show have been subjected to.

And neither did huge numbers of people.

“Clearly you’d rather you had the power to in against what the public want for you own gains. Telling.”

Not trying to be funny, but this last statement is so far removed from English that it is nonsensical. What is it you are attempting to articulate here? It appears to be some sort of baseless smear. Telling.

Twat “I just love that smug indignation whenever the Daily Mail is mentioned to the left! ”

ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

but nobody give a shit what you think.

@ Sally – chill out. Curious Freedom’s doing alright.

#47 Curious Freedom
“I just love that smug indignation whenever the Daily Mail is mentioned to the left! It is priceless and that is why I linked to it”

Not quite as priceless as seeing racists and fascists getting their knickers in a twist after realising that their political idol is making a tit out of himslef on TV, that he’s incapable to articulate his views and that he’s getting humiliated in a debate.

“the article is from the words of the very people who were there. In short, it is from the horse’s mouth.”
No. The article is from the Daily Mail – the paper with -by far- the highest number of PCC complaints on record.

(The white working class is the BNP’s) base, their target and their potential propellant.

And yet they don’t vote for them, because the BNP are Nazis and British people, by and large, don’t like Nazis. They may have a wide variety of views on immigration from Let ’em all in to Send ’em all back, but when it comes right down to it Britain is not buying the BNP’s bill of goods.

The latest YouGov poll suggests 22% of the electorate will now seriously consider voting for the BNP.

Like fuck are the BNP even getting 10% of any vote held in this country for the next fifty years. The idea that they will is a right wing wank fantasy. I would seriously consider voting for the BNP – give me a minute… Right, thought about it, and no, not a chance. See how that works?

I’ll say this again – the BNP can only muster two MEPs, and that because voter turnout at the election was a record low because Labour voters didn’t go to the polls. A party that can has only two MEPs obviously doesn’t represent the white working class, or any other class of any colour for that matter. Anyone claiming differently is either deluded or a liar.

So you are saying that all BNP voters are at fascists and at least 68 years old? How absurd.

I’m saying they’re obviously racist morons. It’s reasonable to assume that UKIP voters are Eurosceptics, since it’s their selling point. It’s reasonable to assume that Green voters are environmentalists, since that’s their selling point, and it’s reasonable to assume that BNP voters are racist morons, for similar reasons. They’re not “the white working class” – they’re a bunch of idiots who vote for Nazis.

Further, I’m saying that we need to address their concerns by laughing at them and telling them to fuck off. There are no policies that the mainstream policies can adopt that will appease BNP voters, since no party is going to stand on a platform of deporting the country’s blacks and Asians and preventing miscegination, so there is no point trying to appease them.

@Dick The Prick: We can only convince rather than ban (under the law).

No need to ban anything – just call them fuckheads and let them enjoy their Nazi councils. The one constant of BNP councillors is that they’re utterly incompetent and invariably fuck the whole thing up even worse than the main parties do – I say, let them lead by example.

If the voters know what they want, then they deserve to get it, good and hard.

“chill out. Curious Freedom’s doing alright.”

Well, if you like Brownshirt knuckle draggers I guess.

The Mail has a long history of liking fascists. They just luvvvvvved Hitler, until he started smashing up most of Europe. You would have thought they would have learned their lesson.

But of course they have another motive to promote the BNP. They want many working class Labour voters to vote for the BNP instead of Labour, helping the Tories to get elected. It is a very dangerous game to play to promote Nazis.

@ Sally

“but nobody give a shit what you think.”

But everyone is hanging off your every word no doubt, Sally?!

But tell me, where did you get this nugget of information from? What is your source? Please don’t tell me it is just another hysterical baseless taunt from yet another freedom loving liberal against someone they disagree with?

@ Claude

“not quite as priceless as seeing racists and fascists getting their knickers in a twist …”

Racist and fascists like Blunkett, Davis and Abbot who all agree that the program was very badly stage managed?

And interestingly, the BBC may have to concede to a right to reply to avoid legal action for breaching impartiality rules if Griffin puts in an evidenced complaint that is upheld.

But you don’t think that the rules apply equally to everyone, is that the case? And that a political ‘thought criminal’ is far more deserving of a Stalinist style TV show trial then previous mass murdering terrorist guests?

“No. The article is from the Daily Mail – the paper with -by far- the highest number of PCC complaints on record.”

The article is IN the Daily Mail, but the COMMENTS are BY the people that were there in the audience.

Tell me you understand this.

@ FlyingRodent

“And yet they don’t vote for them, because the BNP are Nazis and British people, by and large, don’t like Nazis.”

And so who were those million votes from then? Was it those 68 year old fascists again?!!

“Like fuck are the BNP even getting 10% of any vote held in this country for the next fifty years…”

We will see.

According that poll they will. Polls are not very reliable though.

“The idea that they will is a right wing wank fantasy.”

Actually, no. It is from an independent YouGov poll.

“I would seriously consider voting for the BNP – give me a minute… Right, thought about it, and no, not a chance. See how that works?”

For you, yes. But believe it or not, there are other people in this country.

“I’ll say this again – the BNP can only muster two MEPs, and that because voter turnout at the election was a record low because Labour voters didn’t go to the polls.”

Just well worn platitudes with no real basis. If more had turned out then more might have voted BNP.

Same as the ‘protest vote’ one; Thatcher came in from a poor Labour government and so that was a protest vote. Over a decade on the Conservatives had become hated and so Labour won by a landslide. Another protest vote.

They are pretty much all ‘protest votes’ and Labour will bear the brunt of a massive one this time around.

“A party that can has only two MEPs obviously doesn’t represent the white working class, or any other class of any colour for that matter. Anyone claiming differently is either deluded or a liar.”

The BNP didn’t even have a single councilor 10 years ago, and now have over 100, a member of the GLA, 2 MEP’s and a million voters despite constant media and political aggression.

“I’m saying they’re obviously racist morons…Further, I’m saying that we need to address their concerns by laughing at them and telling them to fuck off.”

And believe me, they are telling people like you to “fuck off” too through the ballot box so don’t whine and cry when they do. You ignore the white working class at your peril. A million have already cast the die. But all in all, who are you to tell anyone to “fuck off” with their concerns? A fascist?

I second Flying Rodent’s views.

See how those BNP-fuckheads are wrong in the head?

They think that a party represented by no. 2 MEPs and a few dozen councillors (in spite of HUMONGOUS free publicity as well as popular tabloids echoing their “message”- imagine if the Green Party had the privilege to rely on a third of that!!!) is representative of Britain at large or the ‘white working class’.

So by that token then…Labour is mega-representative of Britain at large or the ‘white working class’. Because -at their lowest point- they still get ten times more votes than the BNP!

Or, by the same token, the Tories. Or the Lib Dems. Or any of them put together. Any of them put together is in fact over 95% of the British population and they don’t wanna know about supporting a far-right fascist party led by a sweaty uncharismatic former NF member..

They didn’t back in the 1930s. They didn’t in the 1970s. rest assured, they don’t now.

@53 Curious Freedom

“Tell me you understand this.”

I don’t believe the way the Daily Mail report things. I don’t believe the way they quote people, their headlines, their articles, their churning out of “statistics”. Not a word.

Tell me you are aware of the thousands of examples of Daily Mail retracting stories or paying massive damages for completely making up stories, distorting quotes or manipulating figures.

That is a fact.

@ Claude

The BNP didn’t even have a single councilor 10 years ago, and now have over 100, a member of the GLA, 2 MEP’s and a million voters despite constant media and political aggression.

@ Claude

“I don’t believe the way the Daily Mail report things. I don’t believe the way they quote people, their headlines, their articles, their churning out of “statistics”. Not a word.”

So you’ll be putting in a formal complaint then and keeping us updated on it?

And by the way, what would be the evidence for your complaint that they made the whole thing up, comments and all?

“Tell me you are aware of the thousands of examples of Daily Mail retracting stories or paying massive damages for completely making up stories, distorting quotes or manipulating figures.”

OK, back that up: “Thousands of examples” and also “The article is from the Daily Mail – the paper with -by far- the highest number of PCC complaints on record.”

But do you not understand that ALL media has complaints? All media has smudged, lied and falsified at points? There will not be one media outlet that is free of taint.

That is a fact.

@Curious Freedom You ignore the white class at your peril.

Listen pal, I’ve been waiting for you to provide some vague evidence that the BNP are the tribunes of the white working class, and you can’t do it. You don’t get to play sneer bingo if the whole basis of your argument is totally fucked.

all in all, who are you to tell anyone to “fuck off” with their concerns? A fascist?

A private citizen in a democracy? They can tell me to fuck off, and vice versa. That’s the way it works. The difference is, I’ve got the vast majority of the country’s population in my “I don’t like the BNP” corner, and I can prove it by pointing at the fact that almost all of them don’t vote for the BNP. If you want to dispute that, you’re going to have to do better than some poll that suggests that a fifth of the population will maybe have a think about possibly casting a hypothetical vote in a theoretical election at an undetermined time in the future.

I just take the Daily Mail as a paper that is unknowing and full of superstitious twaddle which has no intention of finding the truth in any aspect about life. It plays on emotional scepticism which gets the readers juices flowing but it is not a paper to judge as intelligent and insightful. Reality is scary for the Mail and reality is actually wonderful in most cases. “Sod The Daily Mail and don’t bring me down with you”

#57 Curious Freedom

good gracious, if you have to rely on a rag like the Daily Mail to back your argument then you’ve probably hit rock bottom.
I personally wouldn’t use it to wipe my arse after I’ve had the shits. And I’m done for tonight.

There is an interesting post on Political Betting about BNP voters today:

http://tinyurl.com/yzwjmnh

It suggests something slightly different from the common consensus that it is all disaffected Labour voters. What the article says is, yes, some of them are, but some of them are returning voters who just didn’t have a party to vote for. So, didn’t. Though I’d tend to agree with Flying Rodents’ assessment of their likely national constituency being around a million or so.

I disagree with Curious Freedom, at least on the media agenda, which, it seems to me, has been very favourable to the sort of racist stance the BNP take. It is irritating in the extreme to discover, weeks later, that a front page headline in a red top has been comprehensively rubbished elsewhere, whilst the drip, drip, drip of bile that they publish goes on.

There are people that do a superb job of calling them to account, but they are only read by geeks like me usually. The media makes the message and if the propoganda is unrelenting, it is hardly surprising that people end up believing the worst.

@ FlyingRodent

“Listen pal, I’ve been waiting for you to provide some vague evidence that the BNP are the tribunes of the white working class”

If you really don’t know what demographic is voting BNP, pal, then you really need to go and have a damn good read up before passing comment on them.

I will start you off in your education rodent:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/gavinhewitt/2009/10/the_bnp_and_the_white_working.html

“A private citizen in a democracy? They can tell me to fuck off, and vice versa.”

Like I said, they are. A million so far.

“The difference is, I’ve got the vast majority of the country’s population in my “I don’t like the BNP” corner, and I can prove it by pointing at the fact that almost all of them don’t vote for the BNP.”

That doesn’t mean they don’t like them! It just means they haven’t voted for them yet. I have never voted for the Monster Raving Loony Party and neither has most of the UK but it doesn’t indicate any intrinsic dislike of them.

“If you want to dispute that, you’re going to have to do better than some poll that suggests that a fifth of the population will maybe have a think about possibly casting a hypothetical vote in a theoretical election at an undetermined time in the future.”

I don’t actually. You do. If you don’t like the poll, then prove why it’s wrong. The onus is on you. Pal.

@ Claude

“good gracious, if you have to rely on a rag like the Daily Mail to back your argument then you’ve probably hit rock bottom.”

It was link for a lazy man; there are dozens more out there.

But I take you won’t now be pursing a complaint against the Daily Mail for making up those comments from members of the QT audience then?

Would that be on the grounds that you haven’t got a single scrap of evidence to suggest that they have? And so further in that case, we can pretty much assume that these are indeed the comments as expressed by the members of that audience, and it does in fact prove the contention expressed?

“And I’m done for tonight.”

Have a great night.

@60 Claude:”I personally wouldn’t use it to wipe my arse after I’ve had the shits.”

My mother, now in her 70s, learned me a lesson. If the ink rubs off, don’t use it to wipe your bum. Should I use the Daily Mail as a toilet paper substitute; it depends more on whether my bottom turns blue than whether than the paper is blue.

“And I’m done for tonight.”

Y A W N…………..!

Just like I said, Nobody gives a flying toss what you think.

@ Sally

“Just like I said, Nobody gives a flying toss what you think..”

Tut, Tut, Tut. That’s no way to speak to Claude, now is it Sally? Because in your rather odd outrage you failed to notice that I was merely politely responding to Claude’s ‘adieu.’

Now take some deep breaths, think of a really nice ‘celebration’ involving ‘diversity’, pour some cold fizzy water over your head and just calm yourself down.

If you really don’t know what demographic is voting BNP, pal, then you really need to go and have a damn good read up before passing comment on them.

You are perfectly capable of understanding the difference between “some working class white people” and “the white working class”. You know full well that the two are not the same thing, and that this means that the BNP do not represent the white working class. Why are you continuing to insult our intelligence by pretending otherwise?

f you don’t like the poll, then prove why it’s wrong.

I haven’t even bothered to dispute it. It says that x number of people would hypothetically consider casting a theoretical ballot in a non-specific election. That is a very different proposition to millions of people saying “I will vote for the BNP”. Once again, you’re aware of the difference and are continuing to pretend that you aren’t, for reasons known only to yourself.

@ FlyingRodent

“You are perfectly capable of understanding the difference between “some working class white people” and “the white working class”

Typically bizarre.

I have not said the entire white working class are voting for the BNP anywhere. You have been disputing the idea that the white working class do vote for the BNP at all. Apparently “they’re a bunch of idiots who vote for Nazis” but somehow not white working class because of your ‘analysis.’

“this means that the BNP do not represent the white working class.”

They represent around a million who vote for them and actually everyone in the Euro constituencies of the North West and Yorkshire and Humber, the GLA constituency of London and many others in their capacity as elected officials. That’s how democracy works.

“Why are you continuing to insult our intelligence by pretending otherwise?”

Are you part of some Borg like communal intelligence?

“I haven’t even bothered to dispute it.”

What?!! Are you for real?! You called it “a right wing wank fantasy” for a start.

Come on Pal, lets have some honesty here please.

47. Thanks for proving my point, they tuned in because the bnp were there, thus the bnp were topical, thus the format was the same as ever.

And as ever loving your optimism, breaking that first million in a protest vote environment was, of course, the hardest part.

I said Like fuck are the BNP even getting 10% of any vote held in this country for the next fifty years. The idea that they will is a right wing wank fantasy. It patently is. The fact that you feel they will go from strength to strength is neither here nor there.

You have been disputing the idea that the white working class do vote for the BNP at all.

What? I think I’ve been pretty clear that I don’t care whether BNP voters are white English coal miners or Chinese stock brokers – they’re still Nazi-voting morons. I’ve also been saying that the idea that the BNP represent the interests of the “white working class” is patently ridiculous because they represent only a small fraction of that demographic, and that the attempt to elide these knobbers with white working class people generally is an obvious and fairly disgusting propaganda wheeze.

I’m also saying that there is no compulsion on anyone to take their numbnuts opinions seriously. I wouldn’t nod and smile indulgently if middle class Welshmen decided en masse to support the 9/11 Truth Party or if a million Scousers threw their weight behind the Let’s Tattoo Our Ballbags Purple Campaign. The same goes for the thin million ignoranuses who have decided that voting Nazi is the way to go.

An idiot is an idiot, and I could give an arse whether they’re bankers or bin men. Is this clear enough?

@ Lee Griffin

Unable to back up your earlier figures? Surely not? And what was that last statement back there trying to convey to me? In English this time please…

“Thanks for proving my point, they tuned in because the bnp were there, thus the bnp were topical, thus the format was the same as ever.”

OK mate. If you like.

They tuned in to see QT, clearly. They didn’t get QT. Clearly. They got the first format change in 30 years. Clearly.

A panelist appearing on QT is not a topical event; it was quite clearly an organized and concerted attack by the BBC that has backfired. Clearly.

And if this ‘format’ was the ‘norm’ for controversial figures then why wasn’t terrorist mass murderers such as McGuinness and Adams subjected to such a ‘format’?

Whatever you think of Griffin, his only actual crime has been ‘thought crime’, not orchestrating bombings, shootings, beatings, kneecappings, extortion, armed robbery, drug smuggling and countless other outrages against humanity.

Clearly.

“And as ever loving your optimism, breaking that first million in a protest vote environment was, of course, the hardest part.”

Do keep up Lie, sorry Lee.

The ‘protest vote’ platitude, a new much loved buzz word for the BNP along with ‘exposed’ and ‘forensic questioning’ has already been, well, ‘exposed’ by me with some ‘forensic questioning’:

“Thatcher came in from a despised Labour government and so that was a protest vote. Over a decade on the Conservatives had become hated and so Labour won by a landslide. Another protest vote. And so on before and so on after. It is the nature of democracy.

They are pretty much all ‘protest votes’ and one thing is for certain: Labour will bear the brunt of a massive one this time around, and there are many who would rather boil their own head then vote Tory.”

70. If you can’t see the precedent set by griffin’s appearance, nor what the viewing figures show, that’s your problem we’ll not see eye to eye, you have no courtesy and only play ground tactics in discussion. Gloat from here feeling smart if you like, maybe you can find a person to corroborate your views in the daily mail, then it will be irrefutable fact as to your greatness.

Meanwhile we’ll carry on in a relatively bnp-less world while you carry on dreaming

@ FlyingRodent

“What? I think I’ve been pretty clear that I don’t care whether BNP voters are white English coal miners or Chinese stock brokers – they’re still Nazi-voting morons”

Well, this may surprise you rodent, but its not Chinese stock brokers voting for the BNP.

It is in fact the white working class.

A million of them so far.

Like it or not.

If there are lots more people like you around, well, people who actually wield power rather then just impotent rage that is, who not only don’t want to know why but think they can just “fuck off” with their concerns then you are all going to be in for a very rude awakening and very soon.

“I’ve also been saying that the idea that the BNP represent the interests of the “white working class” is patently ridiculous because they represent only a small fraction of that demographic”

A million British people is no small demographic. Particularly when you take into account that each voter has family and friends who are influenced by it, as may well be indicated in that poll. And particularly as the feeling of it being a wasted vote has now evaporated with the election of 2 MEP’s.

“I’m also saying that there is no compulsion on anyone to take their numbnuts opinions seriously”

Polices, rodent. Parties work on policies. Did you not know that?

But more are in any case. Clearly.

“The same goes for the thin million ignoranuses who have decided that voting Nazi is the way to go.”

The vast majority merely voted nationalist rodent. And until you understand that any such opinions you express in public around such people will only reinforce their belief that the left is just one big empty smear and lie machine out to get them.

“An idiot is an idiot, and I could give an arse whether they’re bankers or bin men. Is this clear enough?”

Not that it really matters to BNP voters and potential BNP voters what you think, but let’s be real clear: So they don’t really have any legitimate concerns? Not one of the million BNP voters do? And if the white working class think they do they can just “fuck off” in your book anyway? Is that about the sum of it?

Curious Freedom,

It was not just the BBC that wanted the programme to be all about Nick Griffin.

Nick Griffin did too.

The BNP were over the moon to be on Question Time.

———————————————————————————————

I seem to recall Question Times that were just as interested in a single topic. Around the start of Gulf War 2 for instance.

What happened here was a first half hour or so where BNP policies came under extreme criticism from the audience.

What did you and other media savvy folk expect? That your wee boy was going to get a free ride?

When it moved onto Jan Moir, it ought to have changed, but the audience kept pulling it back.

I consider it a victory for the audience.

That’s what I saw.

Spin away….

@70: “They tuned in to see QT, clearly. They didn’t get QT. Clearly. They got the first format change in 30 years. Clearly.”

Erm, what? The viewing figures were three times higher than normal. Surely the simplest explanation is that 2.7m (around the regular figure) tuned in for ‘Question Time’, and the other 5.3m tuned in for a special event examining the BNP.

In other words, if all of the 8m simply wanted the regular QT, why don’t 8m tune in every week?

@ Lee Griffin

“If you can’t see the precedent set by griffin’s appearance”

The precedent of changing the QT format for the first time in 30 years to be a one man Stalinist show trial without telling him, or anyone else, before hand you mean?

“we’ll not see eye to eye”

Gee, guess not then.

“you have no courtesy and only play ground tactics in discussion.”

I have been very courteous Lee, it is you has launched into some rather bizarre and baseless smears.

Didn’t you like that Lie / Lee thing? I thought you would have loved it. I picked up from that QT “precedent” program, you know the Dick, sorry Nick Griffin thing?

“Meanwhile we’ll carry on in a relatively bnp-less world while you carry on dreaming”

Not if you live in London, the North West, Yorkshire and Humber and the many other areas of electoral representation that the BNP have you won’t.

And after the next general election…

@ douglas clark

“Spin away….”

No need to, the truth of it has already been thoroughly covered in previous comments.

The audience was rigged to be hostile, encouraged to boo and jeer and told to only ask provocative questions and only hostile questions were selected for Griffin.

etc etc

If this ‘format’ was the ‘norm’ for controversial figures then why wasn’t terrorist mass murderers such as McGuinness and Adams subjected to such a ‘format’?

Whatever you think of Griffin, his only actual crime has been ‘thought crime’, not orchestrating bombings, shootings, beatings, kneecappings, extortion, armed robbery, drug smuggling and countless other outrages against humanity.

etc etc

See above.

@ Kentron

“In other words, if all of the 8m simply wanted the regular QT, why don’t 8m tune in every week?”

What bizarre logic.

So, say for instance, in the X factor final when the ratings always spike dramatically, the extra viewers don’t really expect to see the X factor format but some other show instead?

Is that the basis of your logic?

While the entire country saluted the way Question Time exposed the fascists’ appalling ideas . . .

I’m not sure of Mr Carpentieri’s methodology for making this assertion, but he obviously hasn’t been in the Red Lion. But I’m sure the clientele of the other 59,999 pubs in the UK will be of a different opinion. I suspect he was using the word “entire” not in the standard sense, but in the left wing sense of “me, my mates, the Guardian and all the blogs whose opinion I approve of”.

@76: My knowledge of reality music programming is .. limited, but I’ll try to follow your analogy.

It comes down to what you mean by ‘format’. Describing the QT format in a broad sense, one might say “politics programme with a panel of guests, a chairperson and a live audience.” The QT we saw last Thursday clearly (you seem to have a thing for that word) fits that definition.

However, you want to describe last Thursday’s programme as a “Stalinist show trial”, so one presumes you want to use a more narrow definition of “format”. (I’d quite like you to make that comparison in front of members of my family who lived through Stalinist Russia, but that’s another point entirely.) So, if we define the QT format as necessarily regarding a range of topical issues in a relatively friendly atmosphere and regular jovial comments from both the panel and chair (for example), last Thursday’s show would fail.

However, I would guess the final of X-Factor would also fail. If I remember correctly, the show is extended, features fewer contestants than normal, and has scheduling changes. If someone was tuning in, specifically looking for an X-Factor from early in the series, they might well be disappointed. If they weren’t, perhaps they just wanted a music programme. In much the same way, if someone tuned into QT wanting a panel programme, they got what they wanted.

76. You don’t seem to get it, the viewing figures last week were 3 times they’ve EVER been. That’s to say when other supposedly controversial figures were on they had at most a third of the viewers compared to last weeks show. Thus it was an extraordinary situation, and thus was completely on format.

Also, how did these extra viewers know what the format was anyway, so why does the format matter? Every time you write some sub argument here you prove even more that you agree with us about what it is likely people tuned in to see, even if you don’t realise it!

You still don’t explain, of course, why griffin went in loving the publicity, had the dream scenario of people asking him about his policies and views, and yet that was somehow a lynching is what occurred! Your leader is just that inept while looking a gift horse in the mouth, perhaps, in the most basic way unable to stand up to political scrutiny.

There are a lot of frustrated TV producers around this weekend, aren’t there?

@ Kentron

Again just more utterly bizarre logic. No offense mate, I really don’t want to hurt your delicate feelings, you know with you being a Guardian reader and all that, but its all really just gibberish, isn’t it, dressed up as a rebuttal?

When senior politicians from all sides like Blunkett, Davis and Abbot agree that it was a carefully stage managed farce that backfired there is something wrong.

Clearly.

“The QT we saw last Thursday clearly (you seem to have a thing for that word) fits that definition.”

Clearly.

Not.

@ Lee Griffin

“Thus it was an extraordinary situation, and thus was completely on format.”

Only the format that you have invented in your own mind and used spurious figures and logic to back up.

“Also, how did these extra viewers know what the format was anyway, so why does the format matter?”

Do you think they all went out and a bought a TV for the occasion, that they had never seen QT before?

Some very bizarre responses from some on this blog. Some very odd logic. Not herbally inspired is it?

“Every time you write some sub argument here you prove even more that you agree with us about what it is likely people tuned in to see, even if you don’t realise it!”

Yes of course. I am such a fool I keep saying the wrong thing and I don’t even realize it. Thank God you are here Lie, sorry, Lee to help me out.

Go on then Lee, tell me, what is it I should be thinking again? How should I think?

“You still don’t explain, of course, why griffin went in loving the publicity, had the dream scenario of people asking him about his policies and views, and yet that was somehow a lynching is what occurred!”

Because he wasn’t ‘asked’ about his policies at all, and he wasn’t ‘asked’ about his views either.

Instead he was subjected to a nasty, stage managed Stasi type interrogation and treated to a Stalinist style show trial. A kangaroo court.

I can just imagine your shock, horror and outrage if your beloved Polly Toynbee had been hijacked thus…

The BBC engineered this farce contrary to their own rules of impartiality and it left a very bad taste in pretty much everyones mouth for varying reasons, everyone that is expect, as Trofim succinctly describes above the left wing sense of “me, my mates, the Guardian and all the blogs whose opinion I approve of”.

@81: Is your answer:

a) an unprovoked ad hominem attack?
b) a strange assumption (incorrect, as it happens) about my reading habits?
c) a complete avoidance of the points made?
d) all of the above?

Don’t think anyone will need to go 50:50.

81. Two bits of immense funny. 1 that you can’t bring yourself to make the connection between viewing figures and people’s wishes. Reminds me of the viewing figures denialism hashtag on twitter, very apt. 2, that you have tried to tar me in 3 ways that are so opposite from reality you’d be suprised. Keep guessing and making stuff up though, it’s entertaining.

See how many more cliche’s about me and my views you can get wrong, i enjoy those the most 😀

…you are all going to be in for a very rude awakening and very soon.

British Commies have been saying this for a hundred years – dreamers, fantasists, losers, propaganda-merchants. You’re cut from the same cloth. I hope you’ll recall moments like this during your next half-century of minor victories, crushing defeats and a well-deserved national pariah status.

The vast majority merely voted nationalist rodent.

They know fine well what the BNP are, and so do you. You lot are welcome to your “nationalism” and the public revulsion it gets you.

And if the white working class think they do they can just “fuck off” in your book anyway? Is that about the sum of it?

You are still deliberately conflating “BNP voters” with “the white working class”. You know this is bullshit, but you’re still doing it. If you’re just going to spout propaganda for Nazi thugs, you can entertain everyone else with your hilarious fantasies, but I don’t see any point in discussing any issue with people who argue that black is white, if you’ll excuse the metaphor.

I’d advise other commenters to note CF’s extreme slipperiness on a matter of easily-verified fact and thus to take his arguments at an appropriately heavy discount.

“he was subjected to a nasty, stage managed Stasi type interrogation and treated to a Stalinist style show trial. A kangaroo court.”

Ah, yes, that would be why Mr Griffin is currently employed in a salt mine…

#77
“me, my mates, the Guardian and all the blogs whose opinion I approve of”.

Deal with it. The BNP is a tiny minority in this country. It’s a statistical fact. Undisputable. Whether they get 5, 7, 2, 11, 1, or 9% of the votes, that is a minority.

More so in spite of at least two or three dailies echoing their views day in day out and the huge publicity the BNP has been receiving.

I maintain. It’d be an interesting experiment to have, say, the Green Party enjoying the same type of coverage and three dailies echoing chunks of the Greens’ slogans and policies on a daily basis and see which percentage they get at the next elections.

Objectively, I think Nick Griffin wasn’t up to it. I’ve seen Nigel Farage or George Galloway (I’m no fan of either) handling incredibly hostile audiences much much better and in a clamer and more confident way.

The same way I’m the first one to say that Jack Straw (and C.Huhne too) could have been replaced by better and more charismatic speakers, I personally think that if Nick Griffin is the best you lot can do then the BNP can only go downhill from here.

For the record. I rarely read the Guardian. I actually don’t like it very much.

I have not said the entire white working class are voting for the BNP anywhere.

…

You ignore the white working class at your peril.

…

And if the white working class think they [have legitimate concerns] they can just “fuck off” in your book anyway?

Without saying it, Curious, you’re doing a shedload of conflation. Why not talk about BNP voters, not blanket a massive, indeterminate demographic with the alleged “concerns” of the former.

Curious Freedom,

Can I ask you this? Do you see Nick Griffin as entirely sane? Do you see him as likely to be sane in the future?

Let us assume, for a daft moment, that Nick Griffin becomes the next PM.

What do you expect of him?

What do you think he would do?

Would he, perhaps, try to implement his policies?

Would that be what he would do Curious Freedom?

And how, Curious Freedom, do you think that would work out?

It is my belief, Curious Freedom, that you and Nick Griffin are a couple of idiots.

Also…all this BNP=working class equation bollocks/delusion.

Out of all the self-professed BNP voters I’ve had the misfortune to meet in person in the last few years none of them was ‘working class’. None of them. More a case of petty burgeoise types…along the best tradition of fascism on the continent.

Obviously this is not to say that there aren’t BNP voters across the social spectrum. No doubt a number come from the working classes, but no doubt too there are loaded BNP voters too. Just like for most other parties in the 21st century.

“The vast majority merely voted nationalist rodent.”

Crikey – well, they’ll have a rude awakening when they’re realise they’ve voted for a bunch of deceptive, racist, anti–semitic, fascist–sympathising homophobes, white supremacists and anti-Muslim bigots.

Guys, Guys Guys, cant we all just get along?

We could all hold hands and skip to the nearest Black Lesbian and Gay Centre and ask, in an affirmative but non-threateningly and non-confrontationally way if we could possibly, please – but only if it’s totally OK and within their awareness and sensitivity boundaries – use their tax-payer funded facilities for our reconciliation party.

We could all share an organic, fair-trade vegan meal on biodegradable non-bleached plates and converse in a culturally sensitive manner, each of us addressing our needs, rights and issues but all in a non-judgmental fashion and maybe share some non-gender, non-religious, non-racist, non-sexist, non-homophobic, non-ageist and non-stereotyping jokes.

We could light a totally health and safety approved fire alternative and after a non-competitive game or two – no winners or losers here, just the taking part – I could stand up and apologize for slavery, colonialism and my very existence.

After we have all thoroughly celebrated diversity together as a caring commune, we could all peel off on the way home via a rickshaw and not, of course, a polar bear genocidal red murder bus and take different campaign tasks on.

Some could hug a hoodie and also let the street guys who those awfully fascist institutionally racist police harass for no reason know that their expensive clothes, jewelry and trainers don’t fool us – we know its poverty that’s at root here.

Some others could vandalize a McDonalds and scream “nazi scum off our streets” at the nearest working mans club and any passing people who don’t appear to totally commit to our opinions, outlook and lifestyle.

Another group could perform civil partnerships on random men and women at bus stops to show them that hope not hate is the way forward and maybe perform some graphic section 28 lectures at primary school fences, lest the teachers are not doing their jobs properly.

I could lead a group occupying an electrical sub-station, declare it a climate camp and tie up so many police that they won’t be able to respond to their so-called crime duties.

And when the night’s festivities are all finished we could all cast of our Saris and Dhoti – worn in respect of the forthcoming Diwali – and have a hedonistic, no holds barred prophylactic-free orgy and shared-needle drugs session. To hell with STD’s. To hell with disease. To hell with pregnancy. To hell with responsibility. To hell with it all.

The tax-slaves can pay for the fallout.

Who’s in?

Multiculturalism should not be used to excuse anything done by an ethnic minority.

Two men living next door to each other. Both have 4 wives. One if he is a Muslim can be rewarded by the state by getting extra benefits. The other if he is white British can be punished by the state by getting sent to jail.

We allow sharia tribunals which openly discriminate against women.

When people come here and are allowed if not encouraged ro keep parts of their culture that is opposed to the basic standards of our culture (equality under the law equality for women) We are never going to have anything other than a divided society with an increasingly resentful number of people believing that the main political parties are not interested in them.

Curious Freedom @ 91,

Jolly good. Quite hilarious really.

A Daily Mail, Daily Express reader mash up.

But, and there is always a but, isn’t there?

Is Mr Griffin the sharpest knife in the drawer? The brightest light in the chandelier?

Are you?

I think not.

Though it would be quite good if you admitted your very existence was a blot on the landscape…..

I think you both have something in common with thick planks.

Ron Tod,

Apparently, if you were mad enough, it is completely within the rules for you, Ron Tod, to go away to some shithole that has polygamy in it’s constitution, and come back here with loads of missuses.

It is ridiculous, but it is equal opportunities ridiculous. I’d have thought it was a bit of a poisoned chalice.

(This opinion is based exclusively on what I have read here, or hereabouts, and contains no nuts.)

Who’s in?

Ladies and gentlemen, I present CF’s comment above as a window into the minds of the cuddly new BNP – a load of blubbing boo-hoo about imaginary battalions of uppity homosexuals mincing about indoctrinating your kids into unprotected interracial sex, flanked by armies of tofu-munching greenies cruelly persecuting a non-existent Nazi working class.

Nothing new here, of course. For the hilarious persecution fantasies, read “Encirclement!” and “Stabbed in the back!”. For the awful liberals and the greenies, read “Marxist fifth columnists” and for all that waffle about diversity, I think we can pretty much just cut straight to the vicious anti-semitism.

That’s the BNP worldview, in a nutshell – just a load of violent paranoia bound up with a series of bluntly cretinous prejudices, larded over with a veneer of half-arsed tabloid shite about law and order. Blame, then Hate, then Coalesce into a semi-coherent narrative of treasonous socialists, duped by indoctrination with foreign ideologies by a shadowy clan of string-pulling, swarthy untermenschen.

Honestly, Nazis – scrape away the pissweak populist rhetoric, and its always a search for an ethnic scapegoat and their traitorous useful idiots. Are we casting the Jews as the race enemy this time, CF, or are the public more receptive to lunatic theories about the Muslims? Whichever it is, you can bet the BNP has a Solution.

@91 to 95, I thought was funny. Cheers peeps for an enjoyable Sunday which I think may have got us nowhere. Have a good week.

Flying Rodent,

Honestly, Nazis – scrape away the pissweak populist rhetoric, and its always a search for an ethnic scapegoat and their traitorous useful idiots. Are we casting the Jews as the race enemy this time, CF, or are the public more receptive to lunatic theories about the Muslims? Whichever it is, you can bet the BNP has a Solution.

Absolutely right.

However.

And there had to be a however, didn’t there?

It is up to moderate Muslims to reject this shit, just as much as you or I do?

Correct me if I am wrong, but moderate Muslims are a majority in this land? Their silence does them no favours. It should not be up to thee and me to stand up against this shit,

Muslims should do it for themselves.

Who’s in?

I hope you cleaned your keyboard after that…